Hong Kong on a plate

Dishing up everything from dan dan noodles to grapefruit Danishes, and boasting a wave of Michelin stars, Hong Kong dining has never been hotter. Pat Nourse headed to China’s most vibrant territory in search of gustatory awesomeness.

Forget Tokyo, Godzilla: there's probably never been a better time
to eat Hong Kong. Michelin has just published a guide to the city,
only the second Asian guide rouge, with 22 starred restaurants.
More excitingly still, wine prices here, the undoing of so many
dining destinations in Asia, have been heading south since taxes on
beer and wine were abolished in 2008. Hong Kong is cleaner than
Bangkok, edgier and more fun than Singapore, cheaper than Japan and
offers a degree of sophistication in both traditional and imported
cuisines that mainland China just can't match. (Oh, and the
shopping ain't bad, either.)

The city offers such a multiplicity of good eating at every
level that it can be almost overwhelming in its appeal to
restaurant addicts. Here, we've tried to give a picture of the very
best across the board, whether it's from the Occident or the
Orient, served on Limoges or Laminex. Our sole criterion: gustatory
awesomeness. Dig in.

1. Siu mai, Luk Yu Teahouse If there's a better way to start the day than dim sum,
Hong Kong hasn't heard of it. There's no shortage of options, but
for a sense of place Luk Yu is hard to beat. Give the severe
doorman a nod and slide into one of the tiny timber booths. In days
gone by, this was where the city's power was brokered. Tea is such
a big deal here that many of the older regulars bring in leaves
from their private supply, but there's an impressive range of aged
pu-erh teas, among others, on the menu, should you neglect to BYO.
Trolleys have no place on this floor; veteran waitresses walk the
surprisingly specific selection of dumplings and the like around
the room on trays slung from their shoulders like they're at a ball
game. Stick with the basics, such as the pure pork siu mai
dumplings, for a true taste of the classics. 24-26 Stanley St, Hong
Kong, +852 2523 5464

2. Chicken and abalone roll with Yunnan ham, Man
Wah If, sitting at the 25th floor, Man Wah isn't the highest
dim sum spot in town, it's certainly the closest to the high life.
Rather than the usual Canto-barn dimensions, it's an attractively
manageable size, richly decked out with tables set with exquisite
wares. The standards, whether the pristine prawn dumplings, the
cloud-like barbecue pork buns or the soup dumplings blushed with
red vinegar, are rendered with precision and lightness. The same
clarity extends to thick shreds of abalone and pert asparagus
spears steamed in a bundle with Yunnan ham. Here, you should look
beyond custard tarts for your brunch dessert, if the subtle
elegance of the double-boiled pear in a tea-like syrup made from
aged tangerine peel is any guide. Level 25, Mandarin Oriental, 5
Connaught Rd, Central, Hong Kong, +852 2825 4003

3. Steamed pork dumplings with pork liver, Lin Heung Tea
House An old-school dish from this most old-school of dim sum
houses. This is, as one Hong Kong trencherman puts it, one of the
few spit-and-sawdust joints left. For the record, there's no
sawdust. And the story about the waitress sneezing her dentures
onto the table and then slipping them back into her mouth with a
smile is just a story. The floor staff here don't smile, for one
thing. They're too busy directing traffic. Forget queueing: here
you stalk around the room looking for someone nearly finished (or
merely easily intimidated) and then stand over them until they
yield their seat. The lighting is dazzlingly fluorescent, and the
ritual washing of the chopsticks in the tea poured from enormous
battle-scarred iron pots isn't just for show. The food is equally
rough-hewn. Not slap-dash, mind, just chunky, as with the sizeable
lobes of steamed liver laid over richly fatty meatballs. 160-164
Wellington St, Central, Hong Kong, +852 2544 4556

4. Xiao long bao, Bo Innovation And now for something completely different. If the name
doesn't do it, the mosaic portrait of the self-proclaimed "demon
chef", Canadian-born Alvin Leung, showing off his tattoos might.
The menu is very much in the contemporary telegram style, with an
INGREDIENT named in capital letters followed by a series, of,
comma-separated, nouns, many of which are "framed" with "quotation
marks". But before you run screaming, give it a chance. The liquid
nitrogen, foam and Thermomix action here is applied not to Caesar
salads and paella but to the likes of dan dan noodles and har mee,
and in this Bo is unusual. Amid all the energy expended over the
meal's many small courses, some of the dishes come off about as
convincing and well-conceived as the pseudo-punk look sported by
the staff. But when it works, it really works, providing glimpses
of another face of Chinese cuisine. Spherification has dated faster
than any other culinary technique, yet in his "xiao long bao" Leung
has found possibly the best and most appropriate use for it since
El Bulli's olives. His soup dumplings are all soup and no dumpling,
the liquid contained in a fine membrane that bursts on the palate.
His take on congee has a more subtle brilliance, the classic rice
porridge concentrated into a scant few spoonfuls enriched with
caviar. Shop 13, Level 2, J Residence, 60 Johnston Rd, Wan Chai,
Hong Kong, +852 2850 8371

5. Dan dan noodles, Wing Lai Yuen And then there's dan dan noodles without the quotation
marks. The Whampoa Gourmet Place is about as irony-free a zone as
you can imagine, but there's a kind of mad genius in cramming
branches of Hong Kong's finest vendors under one Kowloon roof. Make
a beeline for the large and well-lit space that is Wing Lai Yuen.
These guys have been making the peninsula's best peanut and pork
broth since the '50s. Crucially, the wheat and egg-based noodles
themselves have a distinct flavour, and their texture is springy
rather than merely soft. Shop 102-105, Level 1, Whampoa Gourmet
Place, Site 8, Whampoa Garden, Hunghom, Kowloon, +852 3152 2162

6. Boiling congee with grass carp, Sang Kee Congee It's an hour before lunch gets underway and there's
already a queue out the door. The hordes aren't here for the décor,
which seems to be designed for ease of hosing rather than comfort;
they're here because Sang Kee has a reputation for being one of the
best congee places in town. And it's true: these guys raise the
humble rice porridge to an art. The version with grass carp is a
popular favourite. It's a dish that's especially interesting when
you throw some pork offal into the mix, the textures of tripe and
liver playing off the white-fleshed fish. If you're a real
texture-fiend, though, you'll want to try the congee topped with
fish float bladders, beef and pork balls. Pass the vinegar. 7-9
Burd St, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, +852 2541 1099

7. Sautéed garoupa fillet with choy sum, Tim's
Kitchen It's touched with ginger, but the flavour of the hugely
meaty fish is dominant, clear and pure. It's just one of the
frankly extraordinary dishes served in this surprisingly ordinary
room. The casual observer might dismiss Tim's Kitchen for its plain
interior. But look a little closer and you'll see that the table in
the corner is eating the best crisp-skinned fried chicken in town,
made with birds sourced from the same farm for decades. They're
drinking Lafite and Lake's Folly with their bowls of glistening
fish maw in oyster sauce with goose webs. Tim's specialises in a
classical kind of Cantonese cooking almost lost even here in Hong
Kong, epitomised by seldom-seen dishes such as stewed pomelo pith,
almost melon-like in its texture, all trace of citrus bitterness
removed over the course of several days' cooking, bathed in a
glossy sauce speckled with prawn eggs. They're a revelation, and
should push this otherwise humble establishment to the top of any
serious diner's must-visit list. 93 Jervois St, Sheung Wan, Hong
Kong, +852 2543 5919

8. Steamed goose liver and star garoupa fillet, Lung
King Heen Welcome to Hong Kong's only Michelin three-star, and the
only Chinese restaurant to hold the title. Whether Lung King Heen
is of the class of the great French three-stars is open to debate,
but the hotel-luxe room is polished, the bay views are spectacular,
and there's no question this is Cantonese cooking of a very high
order. Chef Chan Yan Tak's calling card of melting steamed foie
gras played off against the firmness of an outstanding piece of
fish is a dish to savour in the memory long after the reality has
slid past the palate. Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, Level 4, 8
Finance St,Central, Hong Kong, +852 3196 8880

9. Pea soup, L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon Like all Robuchon's Ateliers, this restaurant leaves
something to be desired in terms of the décor (are vases filled
with dried pasta a good idea anywhere, ever?). But the food
is, in a word, flawless. You can't go wrong ordering from a kitchen
full of culinary ninjas who get everything right, but don't miss
the tiny burger with a tranche of foie gras the same size as the
beef patty, or the langoustine en papillote, with its single basil
leaf trapped between the shellfish and its crisp wrapper,
resembling nothing so much as god's own spring roll. Or the pea
soup studded with tiny lardons and topped with an onion foam, which
makes a marvel out of tasting simply, thoroughly and emphatically
of green peas. There's also the Salon de Thé, a café which serves
macarons to rival Hermé's and grapefruit Danishes of remarkable
poise. Shop 401, Level 4, The Landmark, 15 Queen's Rd, Central,
Hong Kong, +852 2166 9000

10. Confit egg, lomo Ibérico, black truffle,
Cépage It's difficult to go wrong with cured pork products and
eggs. Harder still when the egg is slow-cooked till it's just-set
all over and the pork in question is the same used to make the
finest jamón. Throw in some black truffles, croûtons and cubes of
fine oxtail jelly, and all that remains is to pour the 2001 Domaine
Dujac Clos St Denis Grand Cru. A tiny, beautiful modern European
restaurant, Cépage is a new venture from the people behind Les
Amis, the Singapore restaurant with that nation's finest cellar.
They've set out to blow every other wine list in town away, and
with gun sommelier Randy See on board, and 2100 labels in separate
climate-controlled cellars for reds and whites, they're there. Chef
Thomas Mayr can play hard-ball too, busting out the likes of a
super-beefy char-grilled Blackmore wagyu sirloin with beer-battered
onion rings when the situation (or the Pomerol) demands it. 23 Wing
Fung St, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, +852 2861 3130

11. "9 Conduit Street", Pierre And so to dessert. For many pundits, Pierre, the soigné
Hong Kong outpost of Pierre Gagnaire's empire atop the Mandarin
Oriental hotel, is the truest of the Asian branches set up by
Paris's big guns. Certainly, all the big man's trademarks are here:
the radical positioning of ingredients, not to mention the
multiplicity of plates in every course. "L'Agneau", for instance,
sees a flotilla of monogrammed dishes placed before the diner, a
roast saddle of lamb from Aveyron here, a shish-kebab there, and
myriad other bits and bobs. But perhaps the most interesting (and
international) expression of Gagnaire's methodical madness is "9
Conduit Street". Named for the address of Sketch, his loopy London
restaurant, it's a tall glass of green goodness that combines
parsley, coriander, rocket, cucumber and melon bound in a fluffy
pistachio mousseline in what must be the world's first salad
dessert. Twisted, certainly, but also spoon-lickingly wonderful.
Level 25, Mandarin Oriental, 5 Connaught Rd, Central, Hong Kong,
+852 2825 4001

12. Roast goose, Yung Kee The geese are plump, but not obese, as one Hong Kong
gourmand puts it. Around 400 birds are sold here every day,
charcoal-roasted until the fat is rendered and the skin is thin and
crisp. They're the most famous dish at Hong Kong's most famous
restaurant. Despite the spectacular Sino-kitsch of the fish pond
stocked with statues of geese downstairs and the writhing gold
dragons with light-up eyes curled around pillars on the first
floor, this is a well-oiled machine. It's run with military
coordination rather than heartfelt tableside manner, of course, but
the goose, presented chopped on a bed of peanuts like classic
Chinese barbecue, has burnished skin and juicy flesh with a deep,
almost winey flavour. Is it Hong Kong's greatest restaurant? Does
it do the best goose in town? Maybe not, but it's one of those
boxes you have to tick, and it's far from a chore. Besides, if you
think ahead, you can order the Supreme Tureen of Treasures from the
Seven Seas, one of the key contenders for Most Excellent and
Cantolicious Hong Kong Dish Name Ever, along with Hundred Flowers
Chicken and Tiny Money Chicken. 32-40 Wellington St, Central, Hong
Kong, +852 2522 1624

THE FINE PRINT

GETTING THERECathay Pacific operates more than 70 direct
flights each week between Australian mainland capitals and Hong
Kong.

STAYMandarin Oriental, Hong Kong
With its superb location in the heart of the city overlooking
Victoria Harbour, the luxurious Mandarin Oriental is regarded as an
icon in the city. Check out the spa plus the extensive dining
options in 10 restaurants and bars, including Pierre Gagnaire's
Michelin-starred restaurant. Rooms from $450. 5 Connaught Rd,
Central, Hong Kong, 1800 123 693, +852 2522 0111

DOHong
Kong Wine and Dine Festival Part of Hong Kong's Food and Wine Year, the inaugural
festival, from 30 October to 1 November, will feature food and wine
events and entertainment throughout the city.

THE FINE PRINT

GETTING THERECathay Pacific operates more than 70 direct
flights each week between Australian mainland capitals and Hong
Kong.

STAYMandarin Oriental, Hong Kong
With its superb location in the heart of the city overlooking
Victoria Harbour, the luxurious Mandarin Oriental is regarded as an
icon in the city. Check out the spa plus the extensive dining
options in 10 restaurants and bars, including Pierre Gagnaire's
Michelin-starred restaurant. Rooms from $450. 5 Connaught Rd,
Central, Hong Kong, 1800 123 693, +852 2522 0111

DOHong
Kong Wine and Dine Festival Part of Hong Kong's Food and Wine Year, the inaugural
festival, from 30 October to 1 November, will feature food and wine
events and entertainment throughout the city.